THE
SMALL MERCHANT
"You have my sympathy if I am to
write for you, for I am a new
hand at this business, and fear I will not make much of a success of it.
We are glad to have the opportunity to write when your leaders are not
here, for they have more important things to say, and our little chatter
has to wait.
"I am not a newcomer to this side of
life, but I am rather new in this circle. I am trying to become familiar
with the work of writing, for I am told I have much psychic power, and
if I can become proficient in the use of this power, I may be of some
service to others who have
more important things to tell you.
"I was a man on earth who thought he
was living a pretty good sort of life. I did not gamble, or
do dishonest things, in the
little business which I conducted. But I was not much interested in
other people, and I see now that many
times I was hard and selfish,
when it would have been so easy to be kind and generous instead.
"Life there is looked upon as a sort of
grab game. He who is most skillful in grabbing is supposed to be the most
successful. Not necessarily a dishonest practice, but surely a selfish one. I was
not situated where I could seize
anything of any great value, but
where the odds allowed it, I saw that
they fell on my side.
"I was a small merchant in a small
town. I was successful in a small way, but I made of myself a small man
personally. And when I came here and learned what this life meant, it was
a very small niche that I occupied for a very long time.
"I am growing slowly, and am trying to
overcome the habits formed during my long life there. I have reached a
point where I feel that these handicaps are more imagined than real now.
So I make light of them and try to be happy.
"It is a wonderful world here. It is a
wonderful life that is open to every one. I feel sometimes that I do not
deserve all the opportunities that lie before me. But I will try to be
worthy of a little of the happiness that comes to me, and I will endeavor
to send back to earth a little
of the knowledge I am acquiring.
"When you come you will be able to see
the results of selfishness in nearly every soul that comes, and will see
that many have the feeling of being in the wrong place because unprepared. I
was so unprepared that I did not even
know that I was still alive for a long time. It was a surprise to learn
the truth, and it was a hard road I had to travel."
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